


the centre cannot hold

by orphan_account



Series: slouching towards something [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Dirty Talk, French Mistake Universe, Godstiel - Freeform, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Jealous Dean, Jealous Sam, M/M, Oral Sex, Pain, Pining, Rimming, Rough Sex, Sad feelings, Sex Dreams, Soulless Sam, Wincest - Freeform, castiel is god, dean is broken, dean is the bottom obviously, have you seen those eyes, season six, soulless sam is a dick, soulless sam is the definition of badtouch, we're going to pretend that the leviathans never existed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5186054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam does not remember; Dean does. All Dean can do is watch, and mourn. </p><p>But then Castiel becomes God, and the world starts to break at the edges (and maybe that isn't a bad thing.)</p><p> </p><p>(sequel to 'idle hands')</p>
            </blockquote>





	the centre cannot hold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/gifts), [all_not_well](https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_not_well/gifts).



> this is a sequel to 'idle hands' -- read that first, then cry, then come back and read this.
> 
> also this is set during season six. i hate the leviathans so im rewriting it how we all wanted it to go: angsty pain-filled mindfuck wincest-saturated melodrama.

Sam's all Freddy Kreuger, all Michael Myers -- Jack Nicholson from the Shining -- mad eyes and knuckles spiking white through the backs of his hands. And Dean is frightened. Because Sam is barely human. Because Sam angry, Sam murderous -- yeah, Dean can deal; he's seen it all before. 

But this?

It's new. It's terrifying. And what's worse -- what's worse than anything -- is that Dean is in love. He's so in love he wants to vomit. He's drowning in it. And it isn't a gentle tide -- it feels like wash after wash of scalding blood, tugging him under, pulling him far from land.

"You can't kill Bobby. I can't let you."

To Dean's astonishment, Sam drops the axe.  "He won't do any of the stuff you like," says Sam, says the monster that's wearing Sam's skin, and the corner of his mouth yanks up in a sly, vulpine grin. He shows teeth white as winter and sharp as the throes of a storm. "He won't touch you Dean-o. He won't  _want_ you."

Dean lashes out.

Sam ducks, dances, lithe and light on his feet -- and he grabs Dean's arm in a grip of iron, wrenches it high between Dean's shoulderblades -- bullies him against the wall. Bobby's  _right there,_ bound and helpless like a dame in a terrible romance novel, and Sam's -- 

Sam's hard. 

Of course he is. 

This fucked up little scene has all the ingriedients for Robo-Sam's wankbank. Blood. Fighting. The sour tang of fear. 

Sam rocks his hips forwards.  _Grinds_. Slides his cock up against the cleft of Dean's arse, like Dean's some cheap slut in a club. And his breath hitches, catches, trembles on the edge of a moan. He bites down on it. 

Sam's stronger than him. He's always, secretly,  _loved_ that. But now, well. Not so much. 

Because they're not in bed -- they're in a dank, dripping hole in the ground and the air thrums with electricity, with the strange quivering energy of murder. 

Sam's mantling him. Arms as wings, back as a feathered flank. An eagle, something like that, and Dean's the fox run to ground and -- 

The feral, hideous charge in the air tightens. 

Dean's stomach knots. Sam's holding his hands to the wall. They've fucked like this: Dean braced against the wall, hips shoved back, greedy for the shove and punishing thrust, for Sam's teeth in his nape. 

But, of course, this is all wrong and all different because Bobby is  _right fucking there_ tied to a  _fucking chair --_

And Sam pushes forwards again -- and this is deliberate, sliding himself up towards the small of Dean's back. 

His teeth catch at Dean's earlobe. The movement is so delicate that it could be a mistake: teeth getting in the way as he leans forward to whisper something --

And then Sam  _bites_.

A copperbright sunhot series of flares shoot to the back of Dean's eyes. His hair's all on end. He can smell the animal scent of Sam: the clean salt sweat. The darker tang of lust. 

Sam's breath flutters across Dean's neck.

For one dreadful, dreadful moment Dean thinks that he can't do it. 

But the centre, the centre  _holds_ and he spins around and Sam's not expecting him to fight back -- he thought that Dean would slump boneless, let himself be fucked, let Bobby die -- and the shock on robot-cunt's face ignites a fury like a forest fire in Dean's fucking _marrow_.

He punches him. 

And he keeps punching him. 

It takes Bobby shouting, "Dean enough  _enough_ \--" and then he lurches back, and pukes. 

He's got Sammy's blood on his knuckles.

Bobby's milk-white. He looks about ten seconds from death, and Dean has no idea what to say, how to explain, what he could possibly use to explain away the whole _grinding on each other_ thing--

There's a whoosh, and Death appears. 

Huh. Now Bobby  _is_ ten seconds from Death and Dean barks out laughter like a dying dog. 

 

\--

 

Dean remembers and Sam doesn’t.

It’ll tear him apart, it will.

 

\--

 

Sam gets his wall built up brick by brick and Death’s smile slides half into triumph as he says, “He cannot remember Dean, it would break him,” and Dean stares back, hot with tears and shame, and he thinks of the taste of sweat and the pain of loving and not being loved.

Death is not evil. Death is absolute. Death is the gulf between stars, distant and cold and not human in the slightest, and what he does he does for his own amusement -- nothing more, nothing less. And he rests a hand on Dean’s shoulder as Sam slumbers.

“I wonder,” he muses, “what it is to be you. To have the world in your hands, and to pick your brother: always, always your brother.”

Dean wants to swear. Wants to kick and scream but he does not, he cannot, and his gaze slides off the planes of Death’s face like so much oil.

Death answers his own question: “I imagine it is like fire. It burns, and it lights, and it is the most painful and the most beautiful thing. Let me tell you something Dean: I have seen history unveil and I have never met a pair quite like you.”

And with that he vanishes.

He leaves a smell behind. Not graveyard earth, which is what Dean expected, but the frazzle of fast-food, the ash of paper burning and -- for some reason -- sugar.

 

\--

 

Dean remembers. Sam does not. This is the heart and centre of the matter. This is what the falconer cannot hold. This is the whirlpool-pit of madness that Dean is sinking into.

 

\--

 

But he does what he must. He keeps his mouth shut. 

 

\--

 

Bristol, Kansas. 

Robo Sam is all over this town like rotting meat. Dean find scrags of him draped over the girls; imagines him spreading them out like a banquet, helping himself. 

Was he tender -- did he  _make love?_

(there was one time, one time, when Dean was all cut up from a hunt and aching and Sam had fucked him slow and deliberate, licking him open until Dean was whining into the pillow -- pushing in one finger, then another, fucking two digits in and out, nudging at Dean's prostate -- Dean had seen white and black lightning, his dick swollen and leaking into the sheets beneath them --

\-- and Sam had made this low, annoyed sound at the back of his throat -- half arousal, half impatience -- and stuck his tongue back between those two fingers, wriggling it back and forth. "C'mon Dean," he growled. "Lemme fuck you, lemme in," and Dean lifted his head off the pillow, mumbled something like --

"Go ahead, not stopping you --"

and Sam pressed his cock in, edging it in. A shove -- and Dean cried out, pain singing under his skin as cuts and bruises made themselves known. 

So: no more shoving. Gentle thrusts, slow and slick. Dean opens up for him. 

It feels good -- it feels  _wrong_. 

And, afterwards, Sam had sighed noisily. 

"That was no fun. I'm going to find someone else to fuck until you feel better.")

So: the stench of Sam, of old Sam, everywhere. Spunk leaking into the corners of the crime scene. 

And then, of course: it was a trap. 

 

\--

 

There are abominations marching across America. 

They occupy that liminal space between monster and human, animal and monster; they are teeth and savagery and burning-out blood; they are experiments of a mother gone mad. 

Dean calls them Jefferson Starships, but that name is like a gaudy tent nailed up around an open grave. 

He's not  _afraid_ \-- he's Dean Winchester, not an utter pussy -- but something is coming, something huge, gathering strength like a low and surging tide pulling back before the crash of the tsunami. 

 

\--

 

Something is coming; Sam does not remember; and Dean Winchester dreams. 

Every night. 

Every  _fucking_ night. 

Sam. Not his Sam. The other Sam, the one who craved his touch, wanted it -- the one who slapped him around the face until his nose oozed blood, who bit his mouth open with kisses. Sex and bloodhunger in the most beautiful hollow shape in the entire world. 

 

\--

 

Jared's home is fucking mental. Mental. High curved ceilings like a cathedral built in honour to bad taste, photos and mirrors everywhere -- and, yes,  _everywhere_ ; Dean stuck his head into the main bedroom, found one over the bed, imagines the flex and thrust of Sam's shoulders as he nailed someone into the mattress and shuddered all over -- and now his fingers are tight, white, shaking as he holds up a photoframe: Sam and Ruby on their wedding day. 

Genevieve and Jared.

He wants to throw up. 

He doesn't. He places the photo back. He pins his fingers into fists. 

He lets his hands hang limp and loose by his side, and watches Sam click through the internet. 

"Dude, I'm  _loaded_ ," says Sam. As he browses, his hair falls over his eyes in a flicker of brown; his eyes are joyful; his knuckles as shapely as carved silver. The moisture shrinks from Dean's mouth. His tongue is too big, pressing against his teeth; he wouldn't be able to speak if he tried. 

The desk is broad. A slab of pompous masculinity; an extravagant display of wealth; mahogany so polished that it looks wet, reflecting the light in shivering puddles. Dean wanders forward without thinking. He can't bear to be too far from Sam -- not in this strange, alien world where everything is different and everything is the same, and people are not the faces that they wear. It's like a Hall of Mirrors, reflections warped and twisted and mad and nothing at all what they seem. 

He stands at Sam's shoulder. The point of his hip nudges Sam's shoulder. He is acutely aware of the point of contact; the warmth simmering under Sam's skin. It seems that all his nerve endings have relocated to under his hip. They send out wild, electric pulses, singing: we are here, we are here, here where we are. 

He's  _in love_ and he wants to cut out his heart, carve off the bits that want Sam like a surgeon would cut out cancer -- because then he would be normal again, sane again, not in love with his baby brother, not thirsting for the touch of a monster that wore the skin of his brother like a ill-fitting suit -- 

"What in the name of  _fuck_ are you doing here?" shrills Ruby. Genevieve. Whatever her name is. The sight of her sends a hot flare of rage up to the back of his throat. He tastes it like metal filings between his teeth; his hands itch for a knife. 

"Uh -- working?" he says, but she's not listening: she's a woman gone mad. She strides across the living room-atrium thing. She's furious. Her mouth is an ugly, contorted shape and -- 

\-- and there are tears in her eyes. 

"Jared, you promised me it was  _over_ ," she shouts. Her voice rides high, higher then splinters into a sob. Her hands wring her curls. 

"Uh," says Sam the ever eloquent.

"Are you fucking him again? Our wedding night wasn't enough for you? I found you behind the fucking wedding cake! You are, aren't you? You're disgusting. You can't stay away from him, not for five seconds. I want your shit out of here Jared -- you've got five fucking minutes!"

"It's my house," Sam protests. 

"Then I'm going! Try and stop me, asshole!" 

She grabs the nearest thing -- a blue-gold oriental vase -- and lobs it at Sam's head. It falls short, shatters into brilliant shards on the plush carpet. 

The rage flares up again. That  _bitch_ tried to hurt his baby brother. 

Dean steps forward, popping his shoulders back, glowering -- it's a challenge, a threat, and Genevieve-Ruby freezes. She's mad, but the violence singing in Dean's stance cuts through that. She stands, quivering, her mouth the universal shape of hurt. 

And then she wheels on one heel and runs out, sobs echoing behind her. 

 

\--

 

"So in this universe we're fucking," says Sam. 

Dean screws his face up in disgust."God, isn't that gross?"

 

\--

 

As they wait in make-up, Dean fiddles with Jenson's phone. He trails his thumb back and forth, trying to work out how to unlock the thing, when - quite by chance -- he picks the right combination of dots and the phone blooms open. The wallpaper is a picture of _himself --_ posed all white teeth smile against some swimming pool somewhere. 

Jenson is a prick. 

Maybe there are some benefits, he ponders, checking open the photos. A guy as good-looking as him has got to have some decent nudes --

Oh.

Oh  _God_.

It's uh. 

It's Sam. Jared. Whoever. Whatever. 

He's naked. 

And not just naked-naked. Like, sex-naked. Sexy naked. A selfie in front of a mirror, cupping his erection in the palm of one hand, standing to one side to better display its length. Another one, showing his arse -- another one, showing his  _fingers_ in his arse, stretching himself slick and open -- another one just of his cock, close up, and it seems that this Sam ( _Jared)_ waxes. He's as bald as a baby.

Wow. Uh. 

Dean --

Dean needs a moment. 

 

\--

 

He gets to the bathroom. He has a moment. Then he has another moment. Then he has a third moment, and is wiping up the aftermath of his moment with a wad of tissue paper when one of the director guys shouts: "Hey, get onto the set Jenson!"

"C-coming!" he calls back. 

His phone is more than a little sticky. 

 

\--

 

There's a break. The director looks like he is ready to weep. 

Dean excuses himself. 

There are texts as well.

 _I can't wait for you to fuck me again_ , reads one from Sam -- from Jared, that is.  _You can lick me open, then slide inside, and tie me down and fuck me until I can't walk_.

Another:  _I want to suck you off._

Another:  _I'm your little bitch_.

One thing that's different about this universe. Jared's a bottom. 

Dean has another couple of moments. 

His palm is getting a little sore. 

 

\--

 

"I thought you guys had stopped 'hanging out'," says Mischa. He flings both hands up, shapes the air quotes with utter glee. "And yet you're driving in together."

"Don't you tweet this," Dean growls.

Mischa's smile is nothing but sunny. "I don't judge. Love is love!"

 

\--

 

Dean's almost relieved when Virgil shows up and starts killing people."

 

\--

 

Fate's a sexy sleek bitch, with eyes like lightning and a mouth like a rabbit-snare, trapping whatever she might be thinking deep inside. 

"Some things are just written," she says to Sam and Dean. "Like the Titanic --  or your car crash of a relationship."

Afterwards -- when Fate is gone, and Jo and Ellen are dead again -- Dean's lip curls over the word. " _Relationship?_ Dude, you need to man up. Grow a beard or some shit. Everyone thinks you're as gay as Elton John."

"Doesn't help that you're so butch. Screams  _compensating_ to me," says Sam. His tone is easy, light; he's happy to joke.

But Dean thinks of  _compensating_ and then he thinks of the last time Sam said he was compensating --

(that's why you act so tough, Dean-O, why you do that whole I'm-not-a-fag act. Because what you want, what you really want, is to have a cock up your arse all the time -- just be ploughed and ploughed until you fucking _scream --_

 _\--_ and Dean had screamed. Screamed himself hoarse.)

His smile gets tight at the edges.

 

\--

 

Balthazar's got the body of an aging rockstar, the voice of Hugh Grant -- Dean fucking hates that man -- and the grin of a predator. Dean thinks of hyenas tearing into the belly of an antelope, wolves angling in for the kill, Robo Sam's mouth. 

"I'd ravage you," says Balthazar, "if I could stand to taste the self pity in you."

"What the fuck are you on about?" says Dean. 

Eve, the Mother of Monsters and the Mother of All, is dead. Her mutant babies are dead. Those strange, sad things that were all venom sacs in places that should not have poison, and claws in hands never designed to bear them, and legs cracked and crunched into shapes that could never carry them on a hunt. 

Dean could have pitied Eve -- a mother wanting what was best for her kids; a desperate matriach searching to save her family -- but she made horrors from monsters, and she never loved her children. She mutilated them, caring more for her power than anything else. 

It sickens him. Family is before everything. Love is self-sacrifice. Love is that sort of spider that lets her kids eat her alive so they can have a good start. 

Love is brutal, love is selfless, love is destruction of the self.

Anyway. Balthazar. He stands there, shoulders back and head quirked on one side. 

"I'm not here with any ulterior motive," he says. "I genuinely wanted to seduce you. I like your mouth. I like your hands, and I like the way you smell and I think you would look simply  _marvellous_ on your knees with my cock at the back of your throat. But I've changed my mind. You stink of love. It's not a turn on."

A charge runs under Dean's skin -- nothing to do with fear or sex, but everything to do with anger. He knows what Balthazar wants. Wanted. Him: scared and horny and angry and unsure, backing away; and Balthazar, the aggressor, smirk hanging from his face like a steel hook.

Sam made out with a waitress last night. 

Dean had crowed, like it was the best thing in the world, and then thought of how Robo Sam pulled girls, got them back to the motel room, fucked them in Dean's bed so the sheets reeked of cum and sweat. And Dean, sickened and hard, had clasped his cock tight, tugged himself off while Sam watched. And when he came Sam had licked his hands clean, purring --

_"So much better than being with those sluts. So much better watching you."_

Balthazar is still watching him. He's a goshawk of a man: all sharpness and honed, bright gaze. 

Dean grinds his cigarette under his foot, strides forward and mashes his mouth up against Balthazar's. The angel smirks -- Dean feels the sharp edge of his teeth -- and then he grabs Dean, flips him onto his back, onto the dry and dusty ground.

Balthazar stares at him, licking a long stripe down his palm. "I'm not going to be kind," he promises. "I'm not in love with you, and I never will be. I don't even like you. Get off if you can. I don't really care." 

"You're gonna fuck me in a carpark? Classy bitch."

Balthazar sighs, and snaps his fingers. 

They're in a hotel. It's really fucking fancy. A cascading silver chandelier refracts light in ten thousand different surfaces; there's a mini bar, a jacuzzi, paintings on the wall. 

But Dean's more interested in the bed, and thats where he lands when Balthazar throws him. 

"I prefer you naked," says Balthazar, and with that Dean's clothes vanish. Balthazar crawls over him, biting kisses into Dean's hips, ribs, nipples. 

(sam's shoulder against his hip, that starpoint of sensation, the single most beautiful thing in the world)

Fingers nudge at his lips. Dean obliges, opens up, sucks greedily. His saliva drips off Balthazar's nails in pearlescent strings. "It's all you're gonna get," drawls Balthazar, shoving his digits to the back of Dean's mouth, until Dean gags --  

Dean bites until blood swirls into his mouth. 

Balthazar only laughs -- a hard, corvid sound -- and rocks his erection into Dean's stomach. "You can think of your brother," he says, "I don't judge. I'll probably pretend you're Cas. Now bend over."

He fingers Dean open with rough, impatient gestures, all while gnawing his shoulders to bloody pulp. It should hurt, but Balthazar numbs him with a flicker of grace. Then he heals him with a soft press of palms.

There's blood on his lips when he shoves inside Dean. There's blood in his mouth when he kisses Dean, and there's blood clinging to his teeth when he smiles -- open-jawed, lolling laughter, feral -- and tugs Dean up into his lap, slams into him, the angle so fucking painful and so fucking _right_. Every other thrust hits his prostrate; the rest bang up inside him like Balthazar is deliberately trying to inflict pain and the thing is he  _is_.

And Dean loves it.

It's not just sex. It's punishment. It's _how dare you take my brother from me_ and it's  _how dare you be better than the angels who are meant to be above you._

It's fantastic. Dean braces his hands on Balthazar's shoulders, drives himself down, taking in every inch, and when Balthazar starts to get ready to cum, his thrusts getting more erratic, his breath stuttering -- well, that's when Dean stops bouncing, sits tight and still and smirking. 

"Bastard," says Balthazar. He flips Dean over, back onto the bed, flat on his stomach, and he holds Dean down and spits on his hand and shoves three fingers into him. Dean cries out.

Balthazar bites his ear. "Make as much noise as you want love," he coos. "No one'll hear you. Just don't talk."

Dean doesn't talk. 

He does, however, make a lot of noise. 

 

\--

 

About three hours later, Balthazar zaps him back to the motel. "Give us a call if you start hating yourself enough to shag me on the regular," says the angel. Dean is happy to see that he's a little flustered -- his throat ringed with bruises like a garland of roses -- but, of course, all Balthazar needs to do is snap his fingers and the damage vanishes. 

Dean isn't so lucky. He looks  _exactly_ how he feels -- like he's just been fucked more thoroughly than a three-bit whore at a gangbang. 

He doesn't ask Balthazar to fix him up. 

Balthazar won't, and Dean refuses to beg. 

 

\--

 

Back in the motel. Sam's asleep. There's no one sharing his bed, no hovering perfume-scent; nothing to suggest that he's done anything but read and fall asleep. 

The vindictive high shrinks away and Dean's acutely aware of every bruise, every bitemark; the deep, lingering ache that stabs at his gut every time he steps. 

Shame blooms over his face. 

He fucked Balthazar -- let Balthazar fuck him -- over some imagined hook-up. Out of jealousy that he should never feel. 

And Sam hasn't even pulled. 

Would it be better if he had done?

Well, yes. Because if had done -- if there had been a slim, pretty girl curled against Sam's chest -- then Dean would have wanted to vomit, and the pain of getting fucked quite so relentlessly (by someone he fucking hates) would have taken the edge off, just a little. 

As it is: Sam's alone, Dean stinks of sex and Balthazar -- for the curious, Balthazar smells of wine and brandy and fire and petrol, and the charge in the air just before a storm -- and low grey miasma is settling into the corners of his mind, covering his every thought in a cobweb of -- of --

Metaphors fail him. 

Everything fucking  _sucks_ \--

But then, of course, because God hates him --Sam rolls over. 

The moisture's snatched from Dean's tongue.

Sam slept naked. 

The sheet is tugged away, and Sam's on his back: his chest exposed to the world, golden planes of muscle, the dark hollows of his hipbones, the fuzz of pubic hair -- the Sam of this universe never held with the whole waxing shebang, unlike Jared, and for that Dean is glad -- and Dean wants to crawl over him, suck kisses into his throat, murmur apology into the shell of his ears. He doesn't want to fuck him. He wants to curl against his nakedness, his vulnerability, his warmth; and he wants to shield him from the world. 

Love swells in Dean, greater than the world. His fists clench, and he swallows -- he feels his saliva gather into a gob, slide down his throat (his aching aching throat, God  _fuck Balthazar so very much_ ) and he hears the sound his throat makes. 

Everything has narrowed and sharpened to this instant. 

The world could end, and Dean would not notice. 

And then Sam opens his eyes. 

The moment ends. 

"Dean, what the fuck happened?" says Sam, and he's all concern. 

_Jesus no --_

\-- but it's too late to say anything to dissuade him, because Sam -- all naked six foot-four-inches of him -- is out of bed, cradling Dean's skull in huge hands, tilting his chin back to stare at the bruises on his throat --

He gets it. His face goes from concern to shock, and then to disgust. 

The play of emotion over his face is more beautiful than any sunrise, in this world or the next. 

"Who have you been fucking? A wildcat?" he sounds vaguely amused. 

"No," says Dean. He could lie. He  _should_ lie. Sam doesn't need to know. He should keep his issues away from Sam.

(keep Sammy safe)

But for some reason he says, "Balthazar." 

 

\--

 

Sam doesn't bring it up for eighteen hours, and when he does the words explode out of him like so much thunder: no warning, nothing; one moment there's Metallica and silence and the next--

"That dickhead? Really? If you wanted to fuck an angel you could have at least fucked Cas."

Cramped in the Impala, knees singing protest, his ass feeling -- well, feeling like one would imagine it would feel after having an angel trying to reach his heart all night. Via said ass. With a dick the size of the Chrysler building. 

And Dean shouts back, "I can fuck who I like Sam, don't be such a pussy. Not like you have dibs on this."

"Don't be repulsive Dean. It's just you can't trust him."

Dean turns the music on as loud as he can. 

Sam turns it off. 

Dean turns it on again. 

Sam turns it off, ejects the cassette and lobs it out of the window.

Something stabs into Dean's midsection: very precise, very cold. 

They're on a pretty busy stretch of road. The cassette is run over in a second, crunched to nothing and left to flutter hopelessly in the wake of passing cars. 

"Dean, I'm --"

"Fuck yourself," says Dean. His knuckles spike white around the wheel. 

Love feels remarkably like hate, he finds. It's hard to tell the difference. 

 

\--

 

The wall is gone. 

The centre cannot hold. The falcon has fucked off, and the falconer has given up, gone home and got pissed. 

The centre cannot hold, and the thing slouching towards Bethlehem has set itself up a nice little home with a wife and five kids. 

The centre cannot hold, and Dean can joke all he wants but Sam remembers it all. 

Sammy remembers everything

And Sammy won't look at him. 

"We need to split up," he says, when he wakes up from his Cas-inspired coma. Seriously. That's the first thing he says. Propped in a hospital bed, swathed in white --  _drowning_ in white -- looking very young, and very small. His mouth is a flat, unreadable line -- and the first thing he says is that they need to split up. 

Dean can barely swallow around the lump thickening his throat. 

Sam won't look at him.

Dean wants to die, and he can't, because Sam is alive and as long as Sam is alive Dean will live -- bound to the universe by a silver thread stronger than all the gods in all the worlds. He thinks of Alice Temperly, and her family, all those months ago -- the girl dead, the parents grieving, a room thick with the weight of grief -- and his feelings for Sam reduce all that love to pale shadow.

Sam is his world. His everything. His alpha, his omega, the first and the end -- in the beginning, in the very beginning, there was a boy and a baby and the Words and the Word was --

_Take care of Sammy._

But Sammy doesn't want him. 

Sammy remembers, and Sammy does not want him, and Dean thought he'd throw a punch, scream or cry -- but he doesn't. 

Just blank whiteness, as sterile as Heaven. 

So Dean leaves. 

 

\--

 

They communicate, when they need to, through curt texts and through Bobby. They trace the pattern of miracles, spreading in circles from the strange heart of America. KKK members dead, New Agers slaughtered -- this new God-Cas is a vengeful motherfucker straight out of the Old Testament. All holy wrath. 

The world is breaking apart at the edges, and Dean doesn't care. 

He goes to bed drunk every fucking night. 

And every fucking night he dreams. 

Only it's not about Robo Sam fucking his brains out. Oh no. That would be easier. That would be better. 

Instead it's all Sammy: soft touches and soft words, and if they have sex it's gentle and slow and deliberate, hands entwined like a Mills-and-Boon-Mommy-Porn moment. It's shit, and Dean's so angry on the seventh night away from Sam -- the seventh night of playing hunt-God. 

But Balthazar doesn't answer. 

Castiel does. 

 

\--

 

"You're not a God Cas," Dean says, "you're a dick in a trenchcoat. You're my friend. My brother. And a colossal pain in my ass. Stop this shit, and come and get drunk with me."

And with those words Dean Winchester saves the world.

No, seriously.

 

\--

 

The souls of Purgatory are screaming within Castiel.

He feels them writhing under his skin, within his Grace -- millions and millions of monsters stretching him at the seams, crying out in endless agony as he swallows them down again and again, a glutton, desperate for the power that they bring.

There is no rest. No respite. Only the calls of the damned within him, the song of the death, and he is resigning himself to an eternity of torture -- for this is the way this world must be, for there is no one who will help him, no one to forgive him.

Except Dean.

 

\--

 

Dean and Castiel get so drunk they cannot walk. 

And then Castiel says, "I have a gift for you."

 

\--

 

The gift is Sam. 

Dean does not want this gift. 

But Castiel is gone, and the world is safe, and Sam is still there. 

"I didn't ask him to do this," says Sam. He's lost weight; his cheekbones press against his skin in sharp peaks. He's got dark shadows under his eyes, and his flesh is the colour of a fucking corpse. He's shiny with sweat. Looks like he's detoxing. "I'll go."

"No, wait. C'mon!" Dean doesn't know what to say -- he only knows that this is probably his last chance, his only chance -- that the centre his here. The centre, the beating heart of his entire world. "Hit me," he says, suddenly. "Hit me -- or, or, I don't know -- shout at me. Say something. Anything."

Sam freezes. His shoulders tense. "No. No Dean, you can't blame yourself."

He's crying. Jesus Christ. 

Dean's falling. He's falling. The tide is coming in, bowling him head over heels, and he cannot see the light -- not anymore. He's flailing and falling; there are no handholds left, only the shivering cold of the deep.

"Sammy," says Dean. "Please."

"I  _raped_ you," says Sam. 

 

\--

 

Wait. 

What?

 

\--

 

The  _fuck_.

 

\--

 

Dean blinks. 

He blinks again. 

Sam's shoulders shake; his head falls into his hands and he bursts into tears. 

"I love you Dean," he says. His back is still turned. Dean's not moved. It is a snapshot, a heartbeat, a break before the lightning. The tide is washing over Dean, but he's not drowning; he's just suspended, not breathing. Not daring to. "I love you Dean, I love you so much -- more than I should -- more than any brother should. And I want you. And...and I raped you. I remember. You cried, and screamed, and you begged. And I --"

"Uh," says Dean. "You love me?"

"I'll go -- "

 

\--

 

Dean bursts out laughing. 

He doesn't know what else to do. 

He laughs. 

 

\--

 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Sam snaps, spinning about; his face is nothing but hurt. Endless pain. 

Dean kisses him. 

It's nothing. A dry press of lips. 

Sam freezes. Dean wonders, briefly, if he's become Medusa. Turning men to stone with a look. 

"It wasn't rape, you stupid fuck," says Dean. "I wanted it. Wanted you. It was, uh, a little rough? But it wasn't you. I wanted you, but I had him, and so -- so I took whatever he gave me. But I wanted you. I love you."

 

\--

 

And that's it. Sam's in love. Dean's in love. The world is saved. 

That's it -- 

Well, it's not. Of course it's not. 

 

\--

 

They date for three months then make sweet, tender love in the back of the Impala.

Well. 

Not exactly. 

 

\--

 

Sam's got his tongue between Dean's asscheeks, wriggling deeper inside -- every now and then he pulls back, licking and nipping at the rim before shoving his tongue back in. He's making these low, hungry sounds that shudder right to the base of Dean's spine.

 

\--

 

Wait, rewind a little.

 

Sam kissed Dean back, and it was tender and sweet and wonderful. They lay on the bed like teenagers, mouthing at each other, breathing the same air, tasting breath, tongue, teeth. Dean pressed a kiss to the tip of Sam's nose; Sam sniggered, and pushed Dean's hair back from his face, laying a trail of kisses down from his temple to the blunt jut of his jaw. "You're so beautiful," he murmured, "and you're all mine. All mine."

"You're the centre of my fucking world," said Dean, and then he shoves his hand into his groin and checks quickly -- yup, it's okay, he's not grown a vagina. Maybe he can express feelings every now and then. "I'm never going to love anyone more. I'm never going to want anyone more."

"That's gay," Sam said, and stuck his tongue down Dean's throat.

The kissing changed in quality the longer it lasted. They stopped breaking for air. Stopped wanting to break for air. Their mouths joined together, fused like metal in a forge, tongues tangled up -- wet and fevered and desperate. 

Dean was hungry for Sam's flesh, hungrier than he'd ever been for anything ever.

He tugged Sam's shirt off, revealing those golden planes of muscle. They were all his. Everything he saw before him was his -- to taste, to touch, to explore with fingers and teeth and tongue. 

So he did. 

 

\--

 

After that, neither of them even thought about the words 'take it slow.'

They'd taken it slow for decades. 

And so yes, Dean discovered the joys of having a partner who ate ass. 

 

\--

 

Sam licked him sloppy, wet and open before pushing a finger inside, curling it up against Dean's prostate. 

Dean saw white and silver. His fists bundled the sheets up. "Need some lube," he pants -- he's loathe to say anything that would mean Sam stepping away from him, but he also remembers what fucking Balthazar with nothing but spit and prayer for lube felt like. 

"I've not got any," says Sam "Cas just -- "

And then he coughs out surprise. "Cas came through."

He gets up -- Dean whines from the lack of contact -- and fishes in his discarded jeans, emerging brandishing a neat little bottle of KY. 

"You're kidding. Cas left us lube?"

"Cas wants you to be happy. And I know that you're going to be happiest with my dick inside you."

He squirts a generous quantity of lube on his palm, rubs it down his fingers; then he circles the edge of Dean's reddened, wet rim with the point of his pinky. 

"Want me inside?" he says. 

" _Fucking God yes_ ," says Dean.

Sam works one finger in, nudging against Dean's prostrate which each push. Dean's swollen, hard, aching -- his cock leaking all over the sheets as he props himself up on his elbows, presents his ass like a bitch in heat, like a chick in a porno.

In short: like something desperate to get fucked. 

Sam works in a second finger, scissoring them open, stretching Dean milimetre by milimetre. They slide in effortless, Dean's ass swallowing Sam down like it knows exactly where he belongs. 

"You don't have to be so gentle," pants Dean, shoving himself back onto Sam's fingers, desperate for more -- more depth, more touch, more of Sam; always more, more, more. He's greedy for it, gagging for it. 

"I thought that -- that before it was you wanting -- wanting me to fuck you, so you let soulless-me do those things?"

Dean thinks of   _those things_ and almost cums there and then. 

"I loved it. The only thing I didn't like was that it wasn't  _you_ doing them. Fuck me like you fucking  _mean it_."

Sam shoves a third finger in with no warning. Dean gasps aloud, bracing his shoulders and laughing -- bright, ringing syllables. 

"Alright," says Sam. "That's how you want it? Then fucking  _take it_."

He lines himself up, and slides in -- it's easy, natural, effortless -- Dean opening up for him like it's what he was born to do. Sam inches in, so so slowly, until he's seated balls-deep and Dean is shuddering, his elbows twitching, a low burn climbing down his thighs. 

Sam pulls back equally slowly, and Dean keens from the slick-sweet drag. 

"I fucking love you," says Sam, and plunges in -- harder then, hard and deep and it doesn't hurt at all. He sees lightning, bright lightning, and his arms are shaking and he fights to keep his back arched, his hips balanced as Sam hammers into him. 

Sam mantles him, his chest crushing Dean's back, and his teeth find his nape and sink in. 

Dean comes -- Sam follows him over the edge, shooting inside him, hard and dirty and deep.

 

\--

 

Not so long after, Sam tugs at Dean's rim, inching two fingers in and out. "God, you're tight," he murmurs. "And you're so beautiful. I love you so much Dean."

Dean gives his hips an impatient wriggle. "Just come on and fuck me again."

"Demanding," Sam remonstrates, but there's no spark in his voice -- he's sliding three fingers in now, opening Dean up again, slow and easy. 

Dean sighs, gives Sam a nudge; his brother sprawls boneless on the bed, folding his arms behind his head, his cock sticking straight up, flushed red and seeping. 

"Want me?" Dean coos, grinning, rubbing his cock against Sam's, one hand furling the pair. 

"Always," Sam says, lazily. 

Dean guides Sam's cock inside him, and settles happily into the bounce-bounce- _bounce_  of a good fuck. 

The bed rattles. The room fills with grunts, gasps and sighs -- and then -- 

"Oh God, oh Dean, oh take it take it  _take it_ \--" 

Sam comes with a long, low groan. 

"Oi, oi, I'm not done --"

\-- and with a couple of strokes he brings Dean off -- 

\-- only Sam's holding Dean's dick at just the right angle so Dean's spunflies in high, white spurts and hits him in the face. 

He spunks on his own face. 

"You -- you --" he claws at it, then lets it slap onto Sam's chest. "Jerk!"

"Bitch," coos Sam back, and even with a handprint of cum on his chest he looks elegant: a junglecat in the sun. 

And something about that, how they say it, the words singing between them -- it sounds a hell of a lot like 'I love you.'

 

\--

 

The centre holds. 

 

 

 


End file.
